


Funeral Song

by cdrlizziebean



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 21:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3148871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdrlizziebean/pseuds/cdrlizziebean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Now we just need to pretend that Lavellan woke up from this nightmare and Cullen is sleeping soundly beside her instead of me sobbing at my keyboard. #regret</p><p>((Quick and dirty translation for the one elvhen line: My heart,  you are my love, my one love.))</p></blockquote>





	Funeral Song

He had told her the withdrawal could kill him.

She had told him she knew no funeral songs.

The song that tumbled from her did not hold the timber and melody it required. It was not meant to be sung alone. It was not meant to be sung over freshly turned dirt still moist.

“It’s an elvhen calling song,” she had said, the first time she had sung it for him. Her face was bright pink from the alcohol she had snuck up to her bedchambers from the party below.

“A calling song?” Cullen had returned, leaning his head back against the side of the bed. She straddled his knees, bouncing happily.

She nodded. “Well, I think you’d say it’s a call and response song…but the literal translation is a calling song,” she explained as clearly as she could while intoxicated. “And you need to learn the male part for me.”

Cullen chuckled. “And why do you need me to learn the song?”

“It’s an important wedding song. You’ll have to know it if we are to marry.”

She hadn’t realized what she had said until she looked up at Cullen, mouth hanging agape and blushing. If she wasn’t already red from too much alcohol, she would be hot with embarrassment.

“Unless you don’t want to. I mean…that’s fine. The song’s not important. I’m just drunk.” She tried to smile but dropped her head immediately, looking away from him.

Cullen had cupped her downturned face, smiling. “You’re beautiful.” Her heart rose and she smiled brightly. “Teach me the song,” he had whispered.

And he had sung it beautifully. Even when his tongue couldn’t quite shape the words, she was mesmerized by his voice, his mouth, his everything.

But now, as her voice faded, his voice didn’t pick up. There was just silence where she knelt, between her and the dirt. She tried to hum the melody but her lip trembled too much, missing how his voice carried the song farther than she ever could.

She opened her mouth to sing her second verse. Her voice cracked. The tears in her eyes fell silently with every blink.

She remembered how happy he looked when she had sung the song to him, standing underneath the blooming willow tree. Her dress had been made to match the pink roses that grew at their feet and his hair was unkempt gold curls showered in flower pedals.

Her cool wispy fingers had been curled into his large warm hands as he picked up his verse. The audience of whispering elves who had come to watch the Keeper’s first marry a shemlen grew silent. A smile cracked across her face. A smile she reserved just for him.

But now her cool fingers were just cold. The smile gone.

She tried to pick up the last verse. The verse they would sing together, but her voice was never as strong as his. Instead of it raising higher, her voice just screeched. The song had lost all its joy. The only thing left was her voice calling out to him underneath the melody’s elvhen words.

She wanted to shout. She wanted to know why he had left her, why she was alone now. Instead she sang the last verse over again, quietly muffled under growing sobs. She rocked back on her heels, and closed her eyes.

The song was done. Her throat ached. She looked back down at the fresh grave, swallowing the last of her tears. “Ma vhenan,” she whispered, “ma emma lath, ma sa'lath. I will miss you.”

She stood slowly. She stood shaking, unable to do much more.

She had been mistaken. She knew a funeral song after all. A song she could never sing again.

**Author's Note:**

> Now we just need to pretend that Lavellan woke up from this nightmare and Cullen is sleeping soundly beside her instead of me sobbing at my keyboard. #regret
> 
> ((Quick and dirty translation for the one elvhen line: My heart, you are my love, my one love.))


End file.
